


No Angels Here

by Rushar



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst, Burning, Cutting, M/M, Masochism, Sad, Self Harm, Smut, Suicide, seriously dont read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 06:11:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11269587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rushar/pseuds/Rushar
Summary: "Could you have saved me?" Josh asked."You're still alive," Tyler argued."We're both dead," Josh conceded.Tyler didn't object.Tyler would die.





	No Angels Here

Tyler sits. The spruce pew beneath his folded legs digs into his bones. His father would yell if he saw Tyler sitting that way in church. His mother would cry.

Tyler would die.

But tonight is Wednesday night and Wednesday night is choir practice. He's allowed to sit how he wants because nobody in the choir minds. Tyler Robert Joseph doing what he wants. Ghastly, unheard of, old Missus Peterson would have fainted right then and there in her cloying perfume had she known.

Tyler wasn't in the church choir. His parents thought he was but he never actually practiced with them. He just sat and watched. He listened so he could sing with them on Sunday, no music needed, and his parents never suspected that he was lying.

Well. He wasn't necessarily lying.

He was going to choir practice. But he did it just to sit and feel the wooden bench rub raw patterns into his skin. There was something peaceful about the group of mostly middle aged church goers singing in an otherwise abandoned sanctuary that Tyler felt he would disrupt it should he get involved. Nobody wanted a lanky teenager screaming blasphemy and dancing with a piano while they praised the lord almighty.

Tyler would die.

The choir sang a piece about Lazarus, the man raised from the dead. Coming out in wrappings and cloth, healed by grace. Tyler wondered if he died, would he be saved by the same thing the choir professed? Doubtful. Tyler's mind was filled with poison and the minister would call him sinful if he knew. Tyler didn't need someone to tell him that though. The demon in his mind already reminded him enough.

"Tyler."

It was Mr. Lancaster, the sweet choir director in his early thirties. He understood that Tyler wasn't okay and that he didn't need to practice with the group to be able to sing. Mr. Lancaster couldn't help, but he understood. "Practice is over but I have to get home now. My mother is sick and I need to take care of her. Could you lock up for me? There's a boy who comes by every night while I'm putting things up and I don't want to have to turn him away now. He shows up between ten and fifteen minutes from now."

"Sure."

"Oh, Tyler?" Mr. Lancaster paused at the sanctuary doors, turning around. "If you need an excuse, tell your parents that I had you practice a solo part."

"Thanks." The door closed behind Mr. Lancaster, the choir having already filed out while Tyler was lost in thought. Tyler shot his parents a text, using the director's excuse and saying he probably wouldn't be able to make it home by curfew. His mom said okay. It was church. Of course it would be okay.

Tyler eyed the abandoned piano, a 1954 Everett beauty. It was still a while before the aforementioned boy would show up and the piano was calling him.

"Delilah," he muttered, sitting down at her bench and letting his fingers lightly waltz over the keys. She felt like a Delilah, graceful and light, but with a rich mellow sound. Carefully, delicately, he played an A minor. Then a C, and a D minor and an E and he was flying. He was weaving his body, graceful bass notes pulling down the tone of the shrieking treble. Delilah shivered under the force of the song, it fell to gentle and sweet, then back into anger. Tears pricked at Tyler's eyes, hot, salty.

Tyler would die.

He ended, a discordant sound that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and a sickening tremor run up through his body. He was tired, drained. He might throw up.

"That was good."

The boy. Tyler had forgotten about that, lost in his art, his curse. He twisted around and saw a teenager about his age, limp yellow hair and crooked teeth. There were scars up and down his arms, some faded and placed randomly around the skin, others fresher and nauseatingly precise. They were horizontal, row after row, winding around the crooked scars. The boy saw him looking and his crooked teeth disappeared.

"I'm Tyler Joseph."

"Josh." No last name, slanted eyes facing the ground. Confidence stolen by observation. Tyler knew. Delilah creaked as Tyler stood up and walked over to Josh. From a close point it was clear that his skin was sallow, his eyes were dark, and he held a slight odor due to neglect.

Tyler pushed up his sleeve, baring his inner forearm. Josh looked. "I don't smoke."

Small circles were burned into his skin, concealed with foundation that hurt in the summer, hidden with scratchy layers in winter. They weren't from accidentally letting a cigarette fall. Josh looked away.

Tyler would die.

"My dad wants me to go to therapy." Josh pulled out a clump of brittle yellow hair and stuffed it in his coat pocket. "My mom wants me to die."

It was silent, Tyler's breathing echoing around the acoustics of the room. Josh didn't breathe.

"Could you have saved me?" Josh asked.

"You're still alive," Tyler argued.

"We're both dead," Josh conceded.

Tyler didn't object.

Tyler would die.

"I love you." Josh stated. Like it was the weather, or a fact you would hear in school. "Say it back."

"I love you." Tyler repeated.

Tyler went home smelling like sex and blood and smoke. Josh's scars had opened and bled on them both. Tyler burned Josh's hair.

Tyler would die.

  
XxX

  
The next time Tyler met Josh was in the nearby stadium at midnight. They both snuck in, but on opposite sides.

"Hi." Josh smiled. He had a gun.

"Hi." Tyler didn't smile. He had matches.

"Gonna blow my brains out." Josh said.

"Think I might burn my wrists." Tyler twirled the matchbox.

"Wanna have sex?" Josh offered, setting the gun on the bleachers between them. It pointed at himself, giving Tyler the trigger. The brunette looked at it.

"No."

"Okay." Josh smiled and sat back.

Tyler would die.

He lit a match and watched it, watched the flame and the light. He let it burn down to the end and singe his fingers. Then he lit another one. And another. And let the box burn down.

"Check the barrel." Josh told him. Tyler did, turning the safety on first. "Safety before suicide," Josh laughed. Tyler didn't think it was funny. "Press that latch." Tyler did. Nothing happened.

"Empty." Tyler guessed. Josh was silent.

The moon danced.

Tyler would die.

"I don't know how to kill myself," Josh sobbed. "I'm a ghost." He didn't breathe.

"Maybe," Tyler said. He didn't finish his thought. What else could you say? "Hey. Can you feel this?" Tyler kissed Josh and pushed him back. He was lying flat on the bleachers. Tyler stuck his hand around Josh's dick and smashed the boy's head back on the metal seats, again and again and again. Josh moaned and pleaded for Tyler to stop and cried. Blood flew around the back of his head. "Can you feel this?" Tyler roughly jerked Josh's jeans down and this time, didn't look twice at the scars there. He swallowed Josh 's dick, biting and pulling and sucking sweetly. Josh begged to get away, squirmed around, but Tyler bit more. Josh cried more. "Can you feel this?" He felt Josh tense and pulled off, squeezing his dick to stop the orgasm. Strands of slick drool hung from his cock. Josh tried to buck his hips but Tyler hit him, bruising his painted waist. Garnet beads followed his fist back.

"Stop," Josh gasped, snotty and sticky from sobbing.

Tyler did. He swallowed Josh's cum, and vomited it onto his face. Tyler wiped his mouth and his fingers on Josh's singed hair. He took Josh's gun.

Tyler left.

  
XxX

  
Tyler hadn't burned himself in a week.

The next time he met Josh, it was when he was driving. It was early afternoon, everyone back from lunch break and not many people out in their cars. It was hazy and stuffy and he wasn't paying attention to the road. He was wiping sweat from his eyes. Then he saw _yellow-black-red_ and slammed on the brakes, hitting the person before he could stop completely.

"Josh!" Tyler yelled, jumping out of his car. Josh was dazed, sprawled on the hot asphalt. He looked dead.

Tyler would die.

There were lacerations and bruises and scrapes and so much fucking blood all over his body, at least what Tyler could see from under his jacket. It was nearly summer, he didn't need a jacket.

"Ghosts can't die." Tyler told him bitterly. Josh cried. He didn't move. He didn't breathe. "Get up." Josh got up. "Get the fuck in my car." Josh got the fuck in Tyler's car and sat, dead, blank, a chalkboard slate in an abandoned building. Once full of life and well loves but now deserted, left for dead. Tyler waited, then got in the driver's seat when a car going the opposite way honked at him.

"My aunt hurt me again." Josh stated, the words sounding like poison spilling from his lips, pooling from his tongue. "She says I need to call her mom now. But my mom doesn't hurt me." He turned to Tyler. Tyler didn't look. _Eyes off the street; you'll be dead meat._ "I died in a car crash with mom. I thought maybe it would work this time. My aunt takes care of me when dad goes out of town. She doesn't like me."

"We all have problems," Tyler said dryly. "Get over it."

"Let me out." Josh asked.

"Have sex with me." countered Tyler.

Josh licked his lips. "You were a virgin."

"Yes."

"Are you gay?"

"No. Yes. Everything." Tyler pulled over near an abandoned house. "I don't care who you are, you're attractive."

"Except me."

"No, you're not attractive." Tyler paused. "You're fucking gorgeous."

"Gorgeous." Josh echoed.

"Have sex with me."

"You're gorgeous too, Tyler."

"Bend me over and fuck me."

"You have the prettiest eyes."

"Hold me against the floor until I get splinters everywhere."

"You have such a nice voice it makes angels cry."

"You're crying," Tyler pointed out. "Don't waste time with your fingers. Just fuck me."

Tyler would die.

Josh, Angel, fucked Tyler. It hurt. Tyler bled. He got splinters everywhere, even one that stabbed alarmingly close to his dick.

Josh cried. Tyler lit a match and burned them both.

"You're getting blood everywhere," Tyler whined.

Josh winced, folding his arms up against his chest. "Sorry." He looked unimaginably sad.

"If you stay alive until Sunday, I'll kiss you."

"I can't."

"Ghosts can't die." Tyler frowned at Josh and picked him up off the ground.

"Ghosts can't die," Josh sighed.

"Stay alive?"

"Yeah."

Tyler would die.

  
XxX

  
The last time Tyler met Josh was on Sunday. Mr. Lancaster said that Tyler actually needed to play a solo so he played by ear, played by heart. He had words but he couldn't sing, 'ahs' and hums escaping instead.

"You're an angel fallen down," Tyler hummed.

"You're an angel fallen down," Tyler sang.

"You're an angel," Tyler screamed. His mother cried. His father stomped his feet and tore his hair. His siblings covered their eyes and looked away. Old ladies fainted, old men grumbled, young families hurried their babies out of the sanctuary.

Tyler would die.

"You're an angel." Tyler fell. He fell into Josh's arms, Josh, who was crying, Josh, who was bloody and bruised, Josh, who was holding his gun to Tyler's temples.

"I know what I am now."

"You're an angel."

"No." Josh smiled. "I'm just a man."

Josh pulled the safety. _Click_. Josh pulled the trigger.

Tyler would die.

"It's empty," Tyler told Josh.

"No it's not," Josh argued. Tyler stood up. He couldn't stand up. "This is for you. I made it to Sunday."

Tyler kissed Josh. Josh pulled Tyler's matches out of his pocket. Everyone had left the church.

 _"Domingo en fuego!"_ Tyler screamed.

Josh heard him. He lit the match and tossed it to the carpet, then another and another, making a circle around himself and Tyler, using the box. Sunday was on fire.

Josh disappeared, his lips forming words that Tyler couldn't see. He was gorgeous. He was consumed by the fire, eating the church, eating the demons and angels. The fire ate Josh. _The fire ate Josh._

"Josh!" Tyler screamed.

Tyler died.

**Author's Note:**

> -Josh disappeared, his lips forming words that Tyler couldn't see. "I love you"-
> 
> channelling my inner Edy.


End file.
